Chapter 557: Fear Unraveled

Sam said nothing.

"But I have a suspicion I know what’s going through your head," Brynhild said. "You’re trying your best not to cry right now. I know you’re still in shock. Still in disbelief. And I think underneath all of that, underneath the numbness, there is one fear that sits louder than the rest." She looked in her direction. "You’re afraid that if Tobias dies, you won’t know what to do with yourself. That you’ll be left carrying the regret that the man in the story carried. That you’ll spend the rest of your life counting the times you pushed him away."

Sam’s jaw tightened at that.

"You’ve always fought it," Brynhild said. "You’ve always been fighting it, always keeping the distance. And I’m not saying that to judge you. I understand why. While it may sound irrelevant to some people, it’s not to you."

She paused before she continued. "But the goddess is many things, and people say many things about her too. When I say people, I mean Orion," Brynhild said.

"But what I believe is that she doesn’t make mistakes about this. She saw something in the two of you before she made you mates. She saw something worth making permanent."

"Life is too short, Sam," Brynhild said quietly. "That’s the only thing the story is really saying. That man found out too late. I don’t want that for you. I don’t want you to lose yourself in this. I don’t want you sitting in the snow ten years from now counting the moments you kept away from him when you didn’t have to." 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

She squeezed Sam’s frozen hand gently.

"And for what it’s worth, I believe Tobias is going to make it." Her voice was steady when she said it. "Because Lysander is in there. And I know just how capable he is. And beyond his skill, beyond everything he has learned and everything he is, he considers Tobias a younger brother." Something settled in her expression. "He would not let him go without a fight. That I know for certain."

She let that sit for a moment.

"But right now," Brynhild said, "my priority is not Tobias. My priority is you."

Sam’s breath came out unsteadily.

She was quiet for a long moment. Then she gave a small nod, and then the first tear fell.

It dropped without warning, slipping down her cheek slowly, and then her face crumpled slightly, and she pressed her lips together hard like she could hold the rest of it back.

She couldn’t.

"I’m scared." Her voice came out raw and stripped of everything she had been holding it together with. "I don’t want him to go. I keep thinking about every single time I pushed him away, every time I said no, every time I made him feel like—" She paused as she shook her head. "He can’t go. He can’t."

Brynhild pulled her in without a word, and the crying came properly then. She pressed her face into Brynhild’s shoulder and sobbed.

Brynhild held her and rubbed her back in slow, steady circles.

"I’m scared," Sam said again. "I’m not as strong as he is. I never have been. The things people say, I can’t just—I can’t not hear them. I can’t pretend it doesn’t get to me."

"I know," Brynhild said.

"They’ve always talked," Sam said. "About everything. About me and Tobias. About the things they think I am, the things they say I’m not. And I let it—" Her voice broke again.

"I know," Brynhild said again. "People will always talk, Sam. They talked about me and Lysander, some claiming he should not have married me because I’m blind, which in their speech translates to me being defective."

"They also talked about Orion and Sophia," she added. "Most people saw Sophia as an outsider who didn’t deserve to be with Orion, and it only died down after the Holly incident. And also, the same people who talked about me being defective are the same ones who now praise me for being the best warrior ever. Their children aspire to be like me."

Sam swallowed.

"People will always talk, Sam," Brynhild said. "That is the one thing I can promise you with absolute certainty. They will always find something to say. About your choices, about who you love, about how you live. Always." She held Sam’s gaze. "But they are not the ones living your life. They don’t know what battles you fight every morning before you even open your eyes. They don’t know how far you push yourself or what it costs you. They see the surface and they talk about the surface and they go home and sleep and wake up and talk some more."

Sam wiped her face slowly with the back of her hand.

"Don’t lose yourself because of that talk," Brynhild said. "Don’t fill yourself up with grief over words from people who will never once carry what you carry. Don’t give them that." Her hand was still warm around Sam’s. "At the end of the day, the only one who knows your life is you. The only one who knows your heart is you."

"So what if you’re older? What if his father was the one who brought you in? Fuck it all. You care about him and you wouldn’t even be here... you wouldn’t have run out of the compound like that if you didn’t. Don’t focus on people, Sam, and forget to spend days with him. Don’t bottle things up and depend on us, okay? You have me, you have... and you have that stubborn man who is currently being healed."

Sam’s sob came out quietly this time. Less jagged. More like something releasing.

She leaned back into Brynhild and cried freely. Everything she had bottled up right from when she saw Tobias poured out of her. She wouldn’t forgive herself if he left her, but she was going to trust Brynhild. He wasn’t going to die, and when he regained consciousness, she would do what Brynhild said and stop pushing him away.

It just hurt that it had to take Tobias being on the verge of death for her to acknowledge what she had refused to acknowledge for a while.

---

The doors to the medical facility opened.

Orion stepped out first, Ronan a step behind him. They both stopped, taking in the scene before them.

Sam was crying into Brynhild’s chest, her shoulders shaking, the sobs quiet now but unmistakable.

Ronan exhaled slowly through his nose.

Orion was quiet for a moment. Then he too let out a long, low breath.

This was better. Better than when she had been unresponsive. It was better she was sobbing. At least it showed that she was still with them.

Brynhild turned her head slightly in their direction. Then raised a hand to her lips, signaling them to be quiet.